My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school. DO NOT ATTEND UNLESS: (1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL ON SCHOLARSHIP; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Open Letter to the Incoming JD Class of 2015

Dear Dumbass,

You will soon begin orientation at your particular law school/ABA diploma mill. I am sure that you felt a sense of joy and achievement the moment you opened up your acceptance letter. By the end of the second week of class, your idealism will be shattered. Here is a dose of medicine, for your benefit.

Perhaps, you have heard of a newspaper called the Wall Street Journal. On June 25, 2012, it published an article from Joe Palazzolo under the banner “Law Grads Face Brutal Job Market.” Look at this excerpt:

“Members of the law-school class of 2011 had little better than a 50-50 shot of landing a job as a lawyer within nine months of receiving a degree, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of new data that provides the most detailed picture yet of the grim market for law jobs…

The numbers suggest the job market for law grads is worse than previously thought. Nationwide, only 55% of the class of 2011 had full-time, long-term jobs that required a law degree nine months after graduation. The ABA defines "long-term" jobs as those that don't have a term of less than one year.” [Emphasis mine]

Who doesn’t want to incur an additional $165K in NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt for such odds?!?!

On January 8, 2011, the New York Times posted reporter David Segal’s epic article “Is Law School a Losing Game?” If you have not done so, read the entire piece. Here is one telling passage:

“In reality, and based on every other source of information, Mr. Wallerstein and a generation of J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated.

And with corporations scrutinizing their legal expenses as never before, more entry-level legal work is now outsourced to contract temporary employees, both in the United States and in countries like India. It’s common to hear lawyers fret about the sort of tectonic shift that crushed the domestic steel industry decades ago.” [Emphasis mine]

For your sake, hopefully you did not read these articles before choosing to enroll in law school.

Law Schools are Mere Businesses – They Do Not Give One Damn About You or Your Future:

On August 4, 2012, the Oregonian published an article from reporter Jeff Manning, under the headline “Law schools revenues soar as they take in millions from tuition and fees, as supply exceeds demand.” Look at this admission from a TTTT law school dean/cockroach:

“John O'Brien, dean of the New England School of Law and chair of the ABA's legal accreditation committee, agreed the new schools are adding to a significant oversupply of lawyers. But the supply-demand imbalance is not a factor the ABA considers.

"It's not the ABA's job to police the number of law schools," O'Brien said. "Law schools are like other businesses. Ultimately, that's what they are.If there are people who feel there is a void that needs to be filled around the country, the process is to apply for ABA approval. If you meet those standards, you get approved." [Emphasis mine]

Of course, these pigs are not taking on any risk, since they rely on tax-exempt “non-profit” status, and they also receive tons of money in federally-backed student loans. In contrast, you, the student and future graduate, will bear all the risk - as you will be on the hook for your student loans, regardless of the prevailing job market. Plus, the public schools accept HUGE annual subsidies, as well as an influx of cash from state government.

As you can see from the link to the NALP Class of 2011 National Summary Report above, the JD Class of 2011 consisted of 44,495 graduates. Does this number seem large to you, lemming?!?! Notice that employment status was known for fully 41,623 JDs, from this cohort. However, only 27,224 of jobs reported were listed under the category Bar Passage Required.

Furthermore, keep in mind that many of these positions are not traditional attorney openings, i.e. some of the jobs listed in this classification consist of document review and clerical assignments. In addition, the schools continue to include JDs and licensed attorneys working as baristas, insurance salesman, and grade school teachers as “employed” – in order to pad their employment “placement” rates. The main goal is to increase their ranking in US “News” & World Report, which they hope will persuade you to apply to, and enroll in, their program.

Conclusion: The ABA is a cartel run by academic pinheads who have precious little practical experience as lawyers. The schools are run for the benefit of faculty and administrators, NOT for the students’ interests. If you are enrolled, it is not too late to correct your mistake. Keep the following in mind: if you are not in the top 5-10 percent of your class after first semester, then DROP OUT IMMEDIATELY! Your future in this supposed “profession” is pretty much determined by these grades, unless you come from a wealthy or connected family.

If you decide that you are past the point of no return, i.e. it would be further to return to the starting point than to continue on to the end, then you are a lost cause. I know that “law professors” love to joke that “Lawyers are bad at math.” However, you would need to be a waterhead in order not to realize that you are better off owing $20-$30K in law school student loans - after one semester - rather than pissing away three years of your life and incurring $165K in additional, NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt. Don’t worry if your former classmates perceive you as a “quitter.” After all, those idiots will soon be drowning in mortgage-sized debt - while facing anemic job prospects. If anyone in your family is “disappointed,” tell them to enroll in law school.

43 comments:

I honestly believe that you could close every JD-granting school for about 20 years before the lawyer glut dissipated, and maybe not even then.

The law schools produce 20-25,000 lawyers in excess of available lawyer jobs every single year, so the total number of lawyers who cannot break into their own profession must now number a couple hundred thousand, at least.

I'll be generous-- let's keep maybe 40 of the 200 law schools--the T14 minus Georgetown, a few quality state schools, and maybe a handful of local schools that agree to commit to an clinical model of legal education. But even those need to rethink tuition, teaching, scholarship-- basically everything.

The glut of lawyers is going to get worse. You kind of alluded to it already. Automation of legal services is not going away. It's going to expand. Doc review is almost entirely based out of the country now.

Biglaw clients aren't gonna shell out big bucks so the firms can train baby lawyers any more. On that NALP paper, I noticed only about 12% of jobs for class of 2011 came from Fall OCI. That represents the Biglaw firms and prestigious government agencies. I'll take it a step further.

If you have not yet started actual classes, and you're school is not in the top 10, drop out now. If you moved across the country, go back and rent another u-haul. Beg for your old job, if you have to. Take heed.

Great post, and a great job assembling some good stuff in the mainstream media. The Oregonian in particular has put out some hard-hitting articles that are not press releases from law schools.

The 55% figure, as depressing as it is, still overstates the percentage of graduates getting real legal jobs. AFAIK it includes solo practitioners (I've commented before about how ridiculous it is for brand new JD's to "hang out a shingle"), small "firms" consisting of 2-3 new grads sharing office space, and eat-what-you-kill arrangements. Campos has teased apart the numbers further and his conclusion is that about 1/3 of the Class of 2011 actually got real legal jobs.

Apart from the "dear dumbass" part, I agree with this article. The schools don't care about the students in the slightest. If their grads ended up at Baskin Robbins 31 flavors within nine months, they'll count them as employed. And I guess they would be put in the "business" category.

The law schools are run by criminals. These men and women are stealing from the treasury and they are ruining people's lives. But that never stopped them from yapping about law being an honorable profession or lecturing you on the importance of ethics.

I promise you, the vast majority of those students, if confronted with this article, would immediately think: "Oh, that guy's just bitter his grades weren't good. *I* will rise above *ALL* my classmates!"

And then when they get destroyed by the Socratic method they will be depressed but think "*I* will rise above *ALL* my classmates on my exams! I was a journalism major at Arizona State and graduated with a 3.9 gpa!"

And then when they get destroyed on their exams and get middling or worse class rank, they will be depressed but think "*I* will do extracurriculars and rise above *ALL* my classmates on my exams! I was a champion public debater in high school!"

And then when they get destroyed by some asshole appellate attorney who gets sick pleasure from humiliating law students for CLE credits, they will be depressed but think "*I* will improve my grades beyond *ALL* my classmates!"

And then when they strike out at OCI and get no offers in 3L and graduate with middling grades, they will start telling other 0Ls their story, and relay your post to them. And so the loop repeats itself, over and over, until the end of the profession.

You know what we need? An MBA equivalent to the law school scam. I'm not a law guy, but an accounting guy, and ever since I took the GMAT for an accounting program I've been getting flooded with advertisements for MBA programs and I swear to you it's the EXACT. SAME. SHIT. that you'd see the law schools doing. Job placement includes people doing any part-time work or hired by the school, while income stats are only for full-time salaried people (and, of course, massive underreporting goes on). Throw in the two other statistical crutches the MBA programs get (guaranteed promotions where the MBA was just a pointless bullshit HR requirement and people with solid jobs whose companies offered to pay for their MBA for them) and you've got yourself a party. I mean at least the MBA doesn't pigeonhole you into a single sector, but on the other hand you'll hear that you're overqualified all over the place if you get one at the wrong time in your career. Doesn't make sense of course, since a typical MBA is really just a 20% tougher version of your standard useless undergrad business degree but it costs three times as much. At least the JD lets you do doc review...

I'd carry a similar level of cynicism for accounting, but you can't really spin something like "70% Big Four placement" since that's four companies that all pay roughly the same and are almost entirely made up of people on the exact same career track. Don't get me wrong, all white collar professions are on their way there, but the AICPA's willingness to limit the influx of CPAs is at least slowing the lawyerization of our field.

Agree absolutely, Anonymous. The MBA scam is just the law school scam without a bar exam. My wife got an MBA and discovered that no one she knew in her class got the starting salary the biz school said was average for its graduates.

I ran into a guy last night at the coffee shop. He was telling his friends he was thinking of going to law school. Then it comes out he has a wife and a 1 year old at home. I didn't say anything. The info is out there thanks to blogs like this. Campos and the NYT pieces have magnified the message. If "smart guys" haven't run across these pieces, then screw them.

Come on, 5:43 a.m., you could at least have politely suggested that he have a look at Segal and Campos before enrolling in law school. Not for the fool's sake, but for the one-year-old child's! Also, to keep another person, however, foolish, out of the clutches of the scammers.

Why is it, of all the group organizations, the ABA is the only one that does not care in the slightest about its members?

This is a serious question. Look at all the unions out there, for example. True, they alltake huge pieces of the pie and live like porkies on members' money, but at least THEY ARE TRYING TO MAXIMIZE THEIR MEMBERS' MONEY. You don't see a plumbers' union saying "Hey, let's support the opening of a bunch of new accredited plumbing training schools so that we can increase the number of plumbers out there fighting for commercial and homeowner dollars."

Hell, no. They drive up the price, the cost of using their services, by RESTRICTING new entrants. They require all sorts of things to become a plumber, or a whatever union worker, and they also mande conditions ,etc.

They work to *improve* the conditions and income of their members (at everyone else's cost, of course).

Anonymous, as long as the ABA helps keep the law school scam going, they will get the thanks and praise of law professors. They won't do much to help the debt-ridden law graduates and won't do a damned thing to help the public which needs legal services, but they benefit the law professors who are the main beneficiaries of the law school scam.

I stared law school 20 years ago this month at a 4t crapper. I will never forget all the 3ls coming up to me as the semester started telling me it was a waste, there were no jobs, and its all a scam. This is pre internet. I was 22 and didnt care because I didnt want to work fast food back home with my liberal arts degree. The job market for legal and non legal jobs was pretty bad in the 91-92 time frame. Kids didnt give a shit because they had nothing going on. We just stayed in school and we knew it was a scam. Law professors were jokes to 90% of the students. The other 10% just kissed ass because they thought Moot Court or Law Review from a 4th tier crapper would matter to employers. Three years later that 50k loan debt seemed like a mountain. It took awhile but most of us got jobs and had some opportunity to play lawyer.

Fast forward 20 years...I still practice and have made some money but my best income days are behind me absent a catastrophic PI case coming in the door. Tort reform, mass advertising, fee undercutting, and simply too many lawyers for too few paying clients, and law is not a viable option for most experienced practitioners.

School now has to be an even bigger scam now for kids then it was when I went. All these overpaid professors are a joke and couldnt go in a courtroom without pissing themselves yet they get paid like dominant trial lawyers. I cannot imagine being a new lawyer with 100-150k in debt, a much worse job market, and trying to figure out how I will make money and score with a chick who might marry me despite my debt and looks that will decline with age so if I do pay it off, the hot chicks will already be long gone unless I want to rob the cradle so I can get robbed again later when she gets sick of my old ass.

Now we have an internet and blogs that tell you the real deal that we didnt have twenty years ago. This is not such a glamorous profession that it would make sense to go and get under the umbrella of these loans. There will be no bankruptcy for student loans if you think that will save you.It makes no economic sense for the government to do it.

If you are entering anything other then a top law school or someone is paying for your schooling, dont send in that first payment. STOP!! I say that as someone with experience and who knows so many 35-45 yr old lawyers who cant maintain a practice muchless get hired by a barely open firm. Yes the prestigious firms will survive albeit on less money, but odds are they wipe their asses with your resume if you think you could get a job with your law review credentials from Sam Houston State. If you want to practice in three years, you will likely be on your own or underneath the thumb of a low paying asshole who teaches you nothing and gives you the worst cases. Get some idea how practicing lawyers like that set up before you go to school. Who care about Palsgraf lectures from some 1950s Harvard grad who screws students or hookers in between classes out of boredom because he can.

While I have no real regrets going 20 years ago, I think I got in on the tail end of it making sense for the majority of students, but it is such a fine line between success and depression that I know I got lucky.

Any students who sign up now simply deserve what they get and I will never advise my kids to be lawyers.

When the pigs recruit you to their ABA-accredited trash pits, they constantly heap praise on you for your "wise decision" to enter "the legal profession." During orientation, you will almost certainly hear "professors" and administrators tell you that you are "special" – and to “start thinking of yourselves as lawyers from Day One of law school.”

Of course, after you fail to land a decent clerkship after your first year of law school, you will soon realize that the cockroaches simply do not give one damn about you. Unless you are on law review, you will be seen as a mere warm body taking up space, by the faculty. But they will not spit on you, since you are paying exorbitant amounts in tuition.

If you fail to land a legitimate legal job upon graduation, the "professors" will tell you to "Get over it!" If you don't believe that, then take a look at the article below. Simply copy and paste the link below into a new window:

On May 26, 2011, the ABA Journal published a piece from Debra Cassens Weiss labeled "In Commencement Speech, Law Prof Tells Grads Coveting Big-Money Jobs to 'Get Over It.'" From the opening:

"Emory University law professor Sara Stadler thinks law grads need to stop coveting high-paying jobs that just aren’t available. And she said so in a commencement speech earlier this month.

"Get over it,” Stadler told law grads. “The one thing standing in the way of happiness for many people is a sense of entitlement." The Fulton County Daily Report covered the speech.

Stadler said many law grads don’t have jobs or didn’t get the job they wanted, and she wished she could change that, according to the story. But that doesn’t mean opportunities for happiness are lacking. "You might have to move to Nebraska,” Stadler said. “You might have to join a small firm where they don't make the big bucks.”

By the way, this worthless bitch forgot to tell her audience that her father was former U.S. Solicitor General James Lee Rankin, of Nebraska. Also, Rankin the Stooge "served" as general counsel to the whitewashing panel known as the Warren Commission.

Here is my entry, where I handled this flea-covered tramp. Keep in mind that she was addressing the 2011 graduating law class from Emory University. The school is likely ranked higher than your particular school – as it is rated 24th best by the rats at US “News” & World Report.

Lastly, for $ome rea$on, it is okay for pretty much everyone – especially corporate criminals – to EXPECT a positive return on their investment. However, students should not have similar motivations. This is a truly putrid, vile industry.

"Thus, cases of cruel, boomer generation Law School Scam injustice, and likewise general Professoriate cruel oppression, and tyranny, which represent the most extravagant bigotry against trusting youth in general, and trusting post adolescent students, are in constant occurrence among us every day.

More specifically, and in the wake of the horrible American counterculture of the last century (RIP), it is the custom of todays brutish, anti-intellectual, inhumane and hypocritical law school academics to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the students they have done so much harm to and have so terribly wronged, therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because the diabolical hypocrites of the law school cartel do consult the opinion of their own little, sordid and money grabbing world (in the faculty lounge) that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement."

Just finished my second and last day of orientation. Grueling, considering I've gone out 6 nights in a row by now.

So at the final orientation speech, Prof. Roger Schecter, in an otherwise hilarious speech, took aim at the scamblogs directly. He joked that the scamblogs make it seem like the deans are Genghis Kahn and the financial aid office is run by Darth Vader ("Luke, I have a loan for you"). He admitted that 44,000 law school graduates have to compete for 25,000 jobs today, but then said that this will likely change in 3 years, when there will be hopefully more jobs and fewer law school graduates. He also alleged that GW is a "top school" and that it'll place students much better than other schools will. He directly pointed out GW's stats on www.lawschooltransparency.com. I found it interesting, though unconvincing, that a prominent orientation speaker would dwell so long on the scamblogs.

Also, he talked about IBR being a possible solution for the high loans.

Also, during the last speeches, a girl sitting close to me was either drunk off her ass or had Tourettes, and kept freaking out, passing notes to random people, and yelling stuff that made no sense. She had be shushed and almost escorted out of the auditorium. Altogether a surreal experience.

Anyway, I'm actually enjoying my time here so far, "networking" my ass off at happy hours, and looking forward to the first week of class.

Before I went to the thread, I knew. This Lemming has "Special Snowflake Syndrome". He is laughing now. But I assure you, he will not be in 3 years. This fool has posted in many threads and started quite a few as well. A few weeks ago there was a thread 2 down from his about how bad it is right now on people graduating from NYU and how there are quite a few without FT work and several on the ever-shrinking doc review circuit. Quite simply, he has no concept of how things work out there for a male JD in this day and age. The only paths to middle-clasdom I have seen are government teat (state/fed/local) or in-house and those positions are taken by what formerly were called "Yes Men" but are now called "Yes Women" today. I almost never see males in these positions. In fact, I can only think of 2 or 3 out of years of classes that I keep tabs on. Males are persona non grata. This also includes areas like compliance, etc or human resources. He will learn. But he will learn too late.

Last week, I met the eldest son of the family who owns a wine shop in my neighborhood. He just graduated from Hofstra and is preparing for his bar exam. Naturally, he is taking the Barbri course because "most of what they taught in school is totally useless."

His family owns several other businesses. So, he believes, "it makes sense to have a lawyer in the family." He and his father figure that having him around will be cheaper and better than hiring outside counsel, especially as they plan to expand their current businesses and start new ones. Were it not for these circumstances, this young man says, "No way would I have ever gone to law school."

Schechter might have bungled his speech by offering up the idea the the controversial IBR taxpayer scam is somehow endorsed by his school.

IBR is not a fix, and any law school that recommends IBR is in essence passing the buck and advocating the placing of even more burdens onto the backs of the taxpayer so that the law school does not have to change a thing, nor bring its tuition costs down. (By lowering overpaid SL sugar teat paid for faculty salaries, for instance).

It has been a long time since I posted on these pages. Yet, I feel compelled at this critical juncture to give a warning to those students who are about to embark on a three year voyage to nowhere but a land of debt and misery.

I graduated law school over two decades ago. I attended a T30 school even though when I enrolled in law school there was no such thing as a rankings system compiled by a tertiary rag known as U.S. News and World Report. I was fortunate to have attended law school on a full ride. I had been accepted to three T14 schools, however, the scholarships offered by these schools were inadequate. Prior to attending law school, I was told to go to the best law school you can attend for NO COST. I did just that. The author of this blog espouses this philosophy as well, albeit he limits the type of school to the "top 8."

I embarked on a three year law school journey in the Fall of 1986. Back then, there was no pressure to go into Biglaw after graduation. Many people went to law school for a variety of reasons and some of my classmates went on to have successful non-legal careers.

Personally, my godfather was a Biglaw partner who belonged to the same Elks Lodge and Rotary Club as my dad. Prior to starting law school, my godfather told me that as long as I had a B+ average, he would hire me during the summers and after graduation. Thus, I entered law school with no pressure and no thoughts of looming crushing debt.

Looking back at my law school experience, I can remember two professors who were brilliant. The others were buffoons who were being put out to pasture while collecting a big paycheck. The law school model hasn't changed. However, I will tell you what has changed: the legal profession.

Law schools never taught students how to practice law. They taught you legal research, writing and how to "think" like a lawyer. Back then, even the last ranked student would find a job that provided LEGAL TRAINING. It used to be that you learned how to practice law, then you would lateral to another position with some legal experience under your belt. Well, those entry level jobs have been decimated. So what is a recent law graduate with six figure debt and no entry level opportunity? They hang a shingle and enter the lion's den. If you are fine with the idea of earning a living based on a "eat what you kill" arrangement and get a thrill for scavenging for clients who will nickle and dime you while criticizing you for being an incompetent and a thief, then law school is the right path for you.

I will be retiring in 2 years as I have had enough of this profession. It has gotten more onerous to practice law and to deal with institutional clients that are becoming smart and outsourcing via LPOs (if you are enrolling in law school in a few days and don't know what an LPO is, you should just go get a lobotomy).

The legal market is becoming increasingly more competitive and miserable. In two years I am out of this racket. The Class of 2015 is more than welcome to fight each other for the crumbs that are left while paying the exorbitant loans that they will take out to subsidize the comfortable lifestyles of their law professors, who by the way count 1-2 years of document review as their only substantive legal experience.

Let me leave you with one last message. The employment numbers are more fudged than you think. There is a reason the law schools report employed at "9 MONTHS" after graduation. If you scored a 159 on your LSAT, you should be able to figure out why the "9 MONTH" figure is so key for law schools to manipulate data. Take NJ for example. The judiciary employs 550 law clerks for a one year term. After the term, 50% of those clerks will not be hired by law firms of companies. If law schools or the Federal government were interested in honest reporting, they should make it 18 months instead of 9. But you see, the ugly truth is revealed if you saw the true employment rates 18 months after graduation, the employment rates would be in the 40-50% range. So basically, you will likely leverage yourself $200K for less than a better than a coin toss' chance of gaining a legal job, then law school is for you.

I think it is terrible what happened to the Class of 2009-2011. Those law grads that walk the commencement line as of 2012 and going forward remind me of folks that have a casino gambling mentality. Go look up "chasing losses" because that is what you are doing.

Don't believe the law school deans and professors who say that the market will rebound in 3 years. They have been saying that since 2008. Welcome to the new "normal."

The fifth-rate source known as US "News" & World Report posted a piece by Katy Hopkins, on June 25, 2010, under the header "Law Jobs Will Be Harder to Come By." Check out this $elf-$erving quote from James Leipold, the piece of trash at NALP:

"The Class of 2012 will be the first class for which we might see some kind of uptick in employment," Leipold says. "I'm not making a prediction that it will recover in 2012; I'm saying it probably won't recover much before then."

What a bold "prediction," bitch. This gooch-muncher did not even have the balls to make a forecast, regarding the legal job market.

Look at this coverage from the Huffington Post, also published on June 25, 2010. This piece was entitled "Law Jobs Will Be Scarce Until 2012, Expert Says." The piece begins with this faith-driven message:

"The legal job market is showing signs of a thaw, but there are years to go before law students are privy to more opportunity."

As the commenter above noted, these pigs and bastards have claimed - for years - that the lawyer job market will recover soon. Of course, they have no data to back up their belief. They simply want you to accept these pronouncements as articles of faith.

By the way, if you are currently in law school - and are not familiar with legal process outsourcing - then you are a lost cause. Why in the hell would you choose to incur an additional $150K-$185K in NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt - without first looking into the devastating impact of outsourcing and automation on legal services?!?!

India is considered to be a major destination for legal outsourcing due to its availability of affordable English-speaking lawyers, some of whom are UK and/or US educated, and due to a legal system that is based on English common law. Recently, new frontiers for legal outsourcing have emerged in geographic areas closer to their target client markets. Other established LPO providers can be found in Argentina, Australia, China, France, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea, each offering unique advantages concomitant with their distinctive geographic location, language capabilities and regional expertise. Argentina, by way of example, is an increasingly desirable LPO centre for the U.S. client market due to its proximity in terms of its western hemisphere location, time zone similarity, and cultural ties to the United States.”

It's a brave new world, lemmings. You can bask in your state of ignorance - such as the moron who posted at 5:40 pm yesterday has chosen to do - or you can be wise and quickly correct your mistake, i.e. drop out immediately.

Kids that are starting law school in the next several days should check out these reports:

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAEDfdlEo7U&feature=related

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=4xoeeszQSeE

3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i3ARRNbfn8&feature=related

There are more reports out there, such as the one involving the NY and CT licensed lawyer who works at Radio Shack and the NYLS grad who serves pizzas. The Class of 2015 will not fare better. Listen to the girl in the second video. She took time off to work for lawyers and decided it was not for her (i.e, the hours, tedious/mindless work, etc.).

The legal profession will not rebound and will not recover. The law professors and deans keep speculating that there will be a shortage of lawyers by 2015. Right now, if you were to close down every law school in America, there will not be a shortage of lawyers until maybe 20 years from now. If you are still in orientation or still have time to drop out with a full refund, go make an appointment with the dean immediately and ask him/her how the profession will have a shortage in 3 years when there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed lawyers and the ABA gave its blessing on LPO arrangements. If the dean cannot give you a straight answer or has no time for you, DROP OUT. If you persist on this venture, you will regret it.

If you are still in orientation or still have time to drop out with a full refund, go make an appointment with the dean immediately and ask him/her how the profession will have a shortage in 3 years when there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed lawyers and the ABA gave its blessing on LPO arrangements. If the dean cannot give you a straight answer or has no time for you, DROP OUT. If you persist on this venture, you will regret it.

Amen. You want to be a lawyer. You'll be expected to prove your case. Make these Harvard and Yale educated professors prove their fucking case. If these highly educated men can't, you know they're full of shit.

On April 8, 2010, WYNC featured a story from Ailsa Chang entitled “Trouble with the Law: Laid-Off Attorneys Pursue New Paths.” Look at this opening, lemmings:

“These are the people who did everything right. They hustled for good grades in college, crammed for the LSAT, sweated through three years of law school – all to be shuttled into a cushy job that could help them pay off massive debts.

But for 27-year-old Mike Kremen, a law degree landed him a job as an assistant manager at Radio Shack.

Kremen graduated from Pace Law School about two years ago – right when the recession was picking up and the legal industry started to hemorrhage jobs. He’s still waiting for his first full-time legal job offer. He says he might be the only employee in the history of this White Plains Radio Shack who’s passed both the New York and Connecticut bar exams.”

Perhaps, you are enrolled at a school rated higher than Pace University Law School. However, can you believe this guy’s optimism?!

“I’ve had people ask me, ‘Why are you still at Radio Shack?’ And the answer is, ‘Because I have a job,’” Kremen says. “I have a lot of friends that don’t have jobs, and I tell them, if you want a job, you could probably find a job.”

Deciding to become a lawyer is supposed to be the safe choice. But the recession turned that assumption on its head, leading to lay-offs, rescinded job offers, and bankruptcies. Law firms are just beginning to heal, but thousands of lawyers still remain unemployed. They now represent some of the most highly educated, highly skilled, and highly indebted workers still without jobs in New York.

Kremen puts in about 11 hours a day, six days a week at radio Shack -– the kind of hours you see associates pulling at some of New York’s top law firms. But instead of a starting salary of $160,000, Kremen started here at $7.65 an hour.

Kremen still wants that New York law firm job. He’s straining under about $200,000 of law school and credit card debt.”

If he landed this job before the nine month mark, after graduation, then he was also counted in the “employed” category. This benefited the school, even if the commode’s ranking is still rancid. Talk about insult to injury! This is akin to banging another guy’s wife, and then posting pictures of her sexy ass on your Facebook page.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelekremen

On his LinkedIn profile, Kremen is now listed as store manager at Radio Shack. Yes, he is moving up in the world, right?!?! This proud graduate of Pace Law included the following position: “Secretary, New Lawyers Section and Member, Membership Committee at Westchester County Bar Association.” Dumbass also lists “esq.” behind his name. Some people never give up their delusions, I suppose.

Before the law school shills and lemmings proclaim that a law degree helped propel Michael Kremen into Radio Shack management, you should examine how much he earns in his "corporate leadership" position. Take a look at this link:

Read the comment from Chris of Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania. According to Chris, he works a mandatory 64 hours a week and when he computes his commuting time, he earns $2.81 per hour. Also read Douglas's (from Sacramento) comment where he was promised $42K a year but was only paid $27K per year as a store manager.

The irony of Mike Kremen's story is that if you look at his Linkedin profile, he was working at Radio Shack BEFORE entering law school. He is a 2009 grad which means legal employers will see him as tainted or damaged goods since it has been 3 years since he graduated law school and he could not find a legal job. And, this is someone who passed the NY and CT bar exams. Mike Kremen can put Esquire behind his name and hold himself out as a lawyer but he has no clients/practice. Is a cowboy really a cowboy if he has no horse?

While I was on Mike Kremen's LinkedIn page, I clicked on the following profile:

According to Ms. Collins' profile, she attended prep school, NYU and Pace law school graduating in 2008. Guess what she does now lemmings? She is a "freelance writer" and in order to pay the bills she works as a "Server, Hostess, Prep Cook at Gramercy[sic] Ballroom and Restaurant."

Neither myself nor Nando make any money from giving advice to 0Ls. I have been in this business long enough to know that your chances of getting a law job after attending law school are worse than a soldier's survival rate at the Battle of Normandy:

http://www.historicaltravelguide.com/battle-of-normandy.html

I know most law schools start tomorrow. Instead of heading to your first class where your professor will berate you and try to embarrass you because you don't know what the rule against perpetuities is, GO TO YOUR REGISTRAR'S OFFICE AND DROP OUT! You can get a full refund and avoid a very costly mistake. Don't let pride fuck with you. To quote Marcellus Wallace "FUCK PRIDE."

Don't you love it how the law school deans and professors blame the shitty legal hiring market on the Great Recession? Lemmings, the hiring market is a product of the self-correction. The legal hiring market was in the crapper years before the Recession started. If you believe the self-aggrandizing law school administrators that the legal market will recover by the time the Class of 2015 graduates, read this sobering piece from Professor Tamanaha:

I am not sure what crack pipe Professor Schecter is smoking but his unverified and baseless prediction (also echoed by Dean Don LeDuc of Cooley Law School infamy) that there will be a shortage of lawyers by 2015 is contradicted by this ABA Law Journal Report:

Here is the most telling quote from that article from a lemming that stood where you (the 0L starting law school in the next few days):

“The last few years were the hardest of my life. I’ve essentially lost my dream. ... It’s like I’ve failed at everything. If I’d known what would happen, I would have gone another way. I would have stayed at my firm, became a paralegal. I wouldn’t have taken on this debt. I don’t have anything or anyone else to fall back on.”

Kids, don't fall for the scam. For God's sake, withdraw immediately. Once your first week is over, you won't get your money back and you will be on the hook for $20-$30K (depending on whether you are paying sticker or near sticker price).

Law school deans make $500M on average a year. Law professors embezzle (from the U.S. Taxpayers) on average $200K for reciting stale cases that no practitioner ever fucking cites. Pennoyer v. Neff? The Fox case? Regina v. Dudley? If you want to satisfy your intellectual curiosity, you can find these cases on google scholar. These cases have no relevance to the practice of law. Yet they are part of the tired and retread 1L curriculum that is as outdated as a 8-track tape deck. Don't be a fool and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a product that is as useless as a Chia pet. I know that student loan money is easy but you don't know what it is like to carry a mortgage sized debt that will follow you like your own shadow. No bankruptcy or Congressional bailout will help you. IBR is a temporary "band-aid on the Cancerous tumor" treatment that will potentially leave you with a six figure tax bill. Nando and the other commenters here are giving you gratis advice that will spare your life of penury and failure. Remember, the Courts have already charged you with having the mindset of a "sophisticated consumer." You cannot claim ignorance or that you were duped--not when the facts are in front of you.

Just wanted to thank you for your tireless effort in exposing this whole disgusting racket. As a longtime lurker here, I read your posts and can't help but hope that others don't buy into the pipe dream these scumbags are selling.

Remember orientation? Yeah, everything was possible and we were all going to save the world. They made it sound like the road to a legal career was paved with gold. Remember all those judges and lawyers to whom we were introduced? Remember that great sense of camaraderie they tried to instill? Oh my, it seems like yesterday that I had the opportunity to actually make a difference in peoples' lives.

What a difference two years in the shittiest economy since the Great Depression makes. I'm not going into painful details in the life of a document review attorney, but suffice it to say it flat out sucks. But, at least, it's work and I'm able to make my loan payments and keep a roof over my head--only because my wife also works.

I still can't wait until these lemmings have to make their first student loan payment or actually pay for their Westlaw research. Perhaps after a few months of "we'll call if we have anything for you" interviews, they'll give a shot at a solo practice or farm themselves out to an outsourcing sweatshop like I ended up doing.

I could go on, but you've done a far better job at exposing the realities of legal education and a profession more akin to a ponzi scheme than any sort of "noble" calling.

Kudos to you.

And to all you new matriculates, it's not too late to save yourselves from years of debt servitude, mental anguish and utterly dismal career opportunities.

Objective

This blog is maintained by a graduate of a third tier law school. My goal is to educate prospective law students about the perils of obtaining a legal education. There are many pitfalls - the debt load, the oversupply of lawyers, the fact that there are not enough legal jobs to satisfy nearly 45,000 annual law graduates, and the reality that the majority of law school graduates will end up with low-paying jobs upon completion of their "legal studies."